God of War

By Far the Best God fo War Game.

A+

Jun 02, 2009 2:20AM PST

God of war is a game designed by David Jaffe in 2005. It is the beginning of the God of War franchise which also includes God of War two and God of war Chains of Olympus. It is an action adventure game that includes a lot of fast action game play and much button mashing. God of War has 4 difficulty levels, Mortal (easy), Hero (normal), Spartan (hard) and God (very hard).

God of war is set in the heart of Greek mythology, where the Greek gods dominate the lands. You play as Kratos, a massive Spartan warrior in the service of the Gods of Olympus. He is given the task of killing Ares, the God of War, who is destroying Athens. Therefore Kratos has to travel to Pandora's temple to acquire Pandora's box, which is the only thing that a mortal can wield that has a chance of killing a God. Along the way Kratos faces many challenges, both mental and physical as he starts his quest to Pandora's box.

One of the reasons I like this game the most is because of its originality. God of War has one of the most original and epic characters I have ever seen in a game; he is named Kratos. As mentioned above, Kratos is a spartan warrior in the service of the Gods of Olympus. He wields the Deadly Blades of Chaos which are like swords attached to chains. You can do many combos and moves with these Blades, all of which are really cool and action packed. You also gain another weapon in the game called the Blade of Artemis, which is a deadly sword given to you by Artemis. Kratos is a selfish man who cares only for himself and for what he wants, not caring who he kills or annoys as he reaches his goal. He is a great warrior who has pledged his life to the Gods as he seeks redemption for what he has done all his life; killing. While you may not like Kratos at the beginning of the game, you soon find out why he is that way as you discover more about Kratos as a person.

The mythological accuracy of this game is really good. It has been well researched and everything fits into the God fo war time period, which some games do not bother too do. In this game you can face Satyrs (half goat, half man), Minotors and even Harpies. All of these beasts have their own strengths and weaknesses but you will come to enjoy fighting all of them once you get used to their moves. They all have their own moves and combos they can do, but the AI could probably be a bit better as sometimes the AI is only limited to certain rooms. You can also play some fun mini games with them that are like finishing moves you can do when you weaken an enemy. Like for example you can pin down a Harpie with your foot and rip off its wings, or when you weaken a Minotor you can cleave their skulls in half, with the Wraiths you can even cut off their heads. This adds a new aspect to the game that you do not usually see in a lot of games and I am glad that God of War included the mini games in.

God of War also has a weapons, health and magic upgrade systems. With the weapon upgrades you have to collect a certain amount of Red Orbs which can be gained from killing enemy's and opening chests. Once you upgrade a weapon then that weapon becomes stronger and you learn more powerful attack combos. The health and magic however can only be gained by getting Gorgon eyes (health) and Phoenix feathers (magic) from chests. You need 6 of these to upgrade your health or magic by a bit. These are quite easy to get if you don't mind straying off the main level paths and exploring the other places in the game.

This game is very re-playable. If you finish the game once (on any difficulty) then you unlock the Challenge of the Gods which is a group of 10 challenges that add another 2 hours or so to your playing time of the game. You can also do 'specialty runs' which are optional runs that God of War Veterans like to play the game in. These can include No Upgrade Runs (where you have no weapon upgrades at all), No Chest Runs (where you do not open a single chest throughout the whole game) and Speed Runs (where you try and complete the game in a certain amount of time on God mode). All of theses runs are good fun as they hone your God of War skill and add on game play time. The average God mode run alone is about 15 hours if you collect all the extras and upgrade everything, so if you complete a few specialty runs as well then that is about 30+ hours playing the game which is quite good for this type of game.

There are also other little extras you can un-lock by finsihing God mode or the Challenges of the Gods. You can un-lock the deleted levels video which talks about all thel levels that had to be cut from the game for money reasons. There is a nice alternate ending video which talks about what could have happened in another God of War sequel and there is also a video about the making of God of War. All these videos are worth watching.

In conclusion God of war is a great action adventure game. Granted, it has some flaws but nothing that seriously hampers game play. It has a great character who is very origninal and epic, it has a good battle system also. So this is why god of war is a good game.